


oblivious

by PearlHavoc



Category: Frozen (Disney Movies)
Genre: Bonus Day: Bless This Happiness We've Found, Day 1: Culture and Heritage, Day 4: Out of Everyone You Could have Chosen, Day 6: Northuldran Proposal, Elsamaren Summer 2020 (Disney), F/F, Rating upped due to swearing and semi-suggestive scenes, They are both useless lesbians, a little cracky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:00:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25226455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PearlHavoc/pseuds/PearlHavoc
Summary: Elsa discovers that, by Northuldra standards, she and Honeymaren have been married for almost three years. She had absolutely no idea
Relationships: Elsa/Honeymaren (Disney)
Comments: 31
Kudos: 223
Collections: Elsamaren Summer 2020





	1. oblivious

**Author's Note:**

> I can't seem to finish the next chapter for my other ongoing work but I somehow managed to crank this out in less than a day. So there's that.

“Your anniversary is coming up soon, isn't it?” Ryder asks her one morning, and it’s innocuous enough that she doesn’t even realize what he’s asking. Maren is out tending to their reindeer and left early this morning.

“Which one?”

“You know, you and Honeymaren?”

“Since we started living together?”

“Yeah if that’s what you’re calling it,” Ryder winks at her like there’s some shared secret between them and Elsa feels her confusion manifest in a temperature drop.

“I guess? We’ve lived together for almost three years, do Northuldra usually celebrate three years of living together?”

“Well traditionally we celebrate every year, but neither of you seemed too interested in celebrating the past two years, so I figured I’d ask, third time’s the charm, right?”

“Maren hasn’t brought anything up so, I don’t think we’re doing anything,” her friend hadn’t mentioned anything, maybe it was supposed to be a surprise?

“That’s too bad, wedding anniversaries are the best parties,” Elsa cocks her head in confusion and then rights herself in realization.

“What?” Is all she can manage out.

“You and my sister?” It’s then that Ryder realizes that Elsa has had absolutely no idea what apparently everyone has known about her for years. “Oh, I thought you two were like _together_ together.” He presses his hands together awkwardly, unsure of what to do with them or the fact that she had literally no idea about any of this.

“I’m sorry, what?” She needs him to repeat, repeat and elaborate, repeat elaborate, and explain. A lot. Everything.

“Oh, I just thought, well a lot of us thought that you two were like married.”

“How could we be married?” The words force themselves out of her mouth so quickly it sounds more like _howcouldwebemarriedwhattheactualfu—_

“Northuldra people don’t move in together unless the relationship is serious, like if you’re planning on getting married or already married, and for a lot of couples that don’t want a ceremony it’s the closest thing the rest of the tribe gets to a confirmation,” he shrugs, “We all just thought that you two were just very private people.”

“Well no one told me this!” And maybe she stayed with Honeymaren initially because she was going to learn how to build her own hut. And maybe Honeymaren had let her stay in hers because it was kind thing to do for someone who freed the forest and left her only home to stay in said forest. Any maybe Elsa got too comfortable there. And then maybe she lets a few days turn into a week, the week turn into a month, and eventually a few months passed by and eventually they both stopped talking about building her a hut at all. And maybe she had had the few possessions she planned to bring to the forest brought to Maren’s, really _their_ , home. 

Anna had given her such a look. A raised eyebrow and an unbearable smirk. She didn’t get it at the time, but she did now. _spiritsshehadmovedinwithawomanshehadjustmetAnnahadtobelivid_ How could her blabbermouth of a sister not have even commented on it? How had no one told her she was basically married for three years? 

And maybe during their first summer living together, they start sleeping on the same bedroll because Elsa’s average body temperature was better temperature control than anything else. And maybe this continues on into the fall and winter because she just likes sleeping near Maren. And it’s not like Maren ever complained.

And maybe when she visited for game nights, she often brought Maren and not Ryder, despite how close he and Kristoff were. And maybe she and Maren had shared a bed there too—just so Maren wouldn’t feel too out of place of course.

Anna had yelped when she opened the door even though she wasn’t walking in on anything really. They were just cuddling which they did all the time and god she was stupid. Over breakfast, Anna had congratulated her and promised that nothing would change and that she loved her no matter what. Elsa had just thought she was being weird. Maren mentions on their ride back how Kristoff had stopped her in the hallways and told her to be good to her. Both of them had shrugged it off.

And maybe they gave each other pecks on the cheek before one of them would leave for the day. Like Maren had done this morning, like she did on the days she woke first. Maren had kissed her on the forehead before tucking her tightly into their furs.

And oh my god they were dating. Or were they married?

“I need to sit down,” she could have made an ice chair easily, but she wasn’t in the right frame of mind to use her powers, so she just folds into a ball on the ground. “How has no one told me about this?” Elsa really wants to blame him, but it wasn’t his fault she was a moron about her own feelings.

“We thought that you knew?”

“I didn’t,” Elsa wraps her arms around knees and rocks incrementally back and forth. If she didn’t know and Maren didn’t tell her that meant that Maren likely didn’t know or didn’t realize either.

“Do you like my sister?” Ryder joins her on the ground, and offers her a reassuring arm over her shoulders, she meets his eyes. It was an obvious question,

“I love her, I just didn’t know,” Elsa knows that she means it the moment the words leave her mouth. She loved Maren. Not just as a friend but as an everything. “I need to talk to her,” she stops her rocking and gets to her feet. She calls for Gale and he leads her to Maren. She tries to think of what she’s going to say but nothing sounds right. _Heydoyouactuallylikeme? Heyarewedatingbecasueapparentlyeverythingthinkssoincludingmysisterandherhusband. Howdidyounottellmethatweweredating? What are we? Can I kiss you?_ She feels herself blush at the last thought. The few years she had been queen she had entertained a few suitors and not cared for any of them, now she knew why. She had let one kiss her and then never spoken to him again. This had never been her strong suit.

Before she has too much more time to try and prepare herself, she arrives at the clearing. Honeymaren is at the far edge training some of their younger reindeer. _Spirits, they had reindeer together_. Maren, seeing her, waves and starts towards her. Elsa wants to run up to her but finds herself frozen to the ground. Not by ice or the cold but by her body simply refusing to move.

“Hey Elsa! What are you doing here? I though you were planning on heading to Ahtohallen today?” Noticing Elsa’s state of duress, she moves quickly to meet Elsa wrapping her arms around the taller girl’s shaking shoulders, “Are you okay?”

“I needed to talk to you about something,” Elsa feels herself sink into the other girl’s embrace.

“What?” Maren’s eyes are pools of honey that she just wants to fall in.

And maybe they’re so close that Elsa can feel Maren’s warm breath on her neck. And the cold has never bothered her, but this warmth is killing her. And maybe they’re close enough for the other girl to count every single one of her freckles. And maybe Elsa closes the gap and kisses her rather than respond.

Elsa’s never thought that much about kissing Maren but it’s amazing regardless. Anna had always said that kissing Kristoff was like having fireworks go off behind your eyes, and maybe Elsa _finally_ gets it. Maren hesitates for less than half a second before responding. Elsa had meant it to be a chaste first kiss just to test the waters but all of that is thrown out the window as she grants Maren’s tongue entry into her own.

“What was that?” Maren is the first to pull away due to a lack of air. All that singing was surprisingly useful now.

“It’s our anniversary,” Elsa will explain everything later, they’ll laugh and cry at their own idiocy, but right now she just wants to be here in this moment with whatever Maren is to her. Girlfriend, wife, partner, whatever.

“You mean we could have been doing this the whole time?”

“Apparently,” Elsa says breathlessly, having only a moment to catch her breath before pulling Maren pulls her in for another kiss.


	2. oblivious too

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Honeymaren and Elsa are equal and opposite disaster lesbians.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I loved reading all of the comments from the last chapter and it inspired me to continue on with a few more chapters. They will all more or less follow one of the Elsamaren Summer 2020 prompts. This chapter is "Out of everyone you could have chosen, Why me?"

Honeymaren would like to make one thing clear. She had never, never in a million years, considered that Elsa liked her back. She had pined for a long time over the fifth spirit, she thought that there wasn’t anything more than friendship between them, as much as she wanted more. So, when Elsa arrives in the meadows, obviously distraught over something and instead pulls her in for a kiss, she’s shocked.

“What was that?” She manages to stammer out. Heat spreading everywhere on her body. Elsa’s lips are softer than she ever imagined, and she’s thought of them a lot. She had felt her lips on her before, but never where she wanted them most.

“It’s our anniversary,” Elsa says it plainly but it’s clear to Maren that she just figured out what an anniversary was or why they would have one. Elsa had no idea. _Elsahadnofuckingcluespiritswhatthehellhowhadshenotrealizedthat_

“You mean we could have been doing this the whole time?” She wants to laugh and cry at her own stupidity.

“Apparently,” Elsa does laugh, completely out of breath, and pulls her in for another kiss. Maren melts completely into this one. Later, when they're curled up in their bed _their bed_ she can’t help but think about how she managed to get here.

She had offered to let Elsa stay with her because she _was_ the one to suggest that the fifth spirit move to the forest permanently in the first place. Ryder had moved out recently and she _did_ have the space. It made sense.

And maybe offering the fifth spirit lodging was a bold move but Maren stands by it every time that someone asks. _It was way too late to take it back anyway._ She and Elsa—Elsa had insisted on being on a first-name basis, being called your majesty all the time was exhausting—had started on plans for her own dwelling several times and quit every single time. First Anna’s wedding-planning had started, and Elsa didn’t want too many projects going on at once; then it was a festival; and then it was something else. And it’s not like Maren is encouraging this procrastination but she’s not trying to break it either. She likes having Elsa around and when she finally voices this Elsa is already settled in her, their, home.

The first summer that Elsa is with her, not _with her_ with her but still, is unbearably hot. The sun, as new and beautiful as it is to see it all the time, is unrelenting and she’s never been so hot in her life. And Elsa offers to let her sleep near her because of course the Snow Queen runs cold. And sleeping with Elsa is the most comfortable she’s ever been. Maren has always run hot and sleeping with a literal ice queen is amazing. And when the seasons change, they don’t try to change anything because neither of them mentions it. And she’s not going to complain because _why_?

And she never complains when Elsa takes her and only her on the Nokk to Arendelle for game night. No matter how much Ryder annoys her when they get home because he wanted to come with. And she doesn’t complain when she’s put in Elsa’s team every single time, and Elsa may be the fifth spirit but she’s absolutely terrible at charades. So, they lose almost every time. The few times that they do manage to win is when Elsa stacks the deck in their favor. Which Olaf calls them on, but they still count it as a win. But when they play pictionary, they’re unstoppable.

Anna shows her to a guest bedroom and Elsa graciously offers to stay with her for her first visit. Maren appreciates it because, until a few years ago, this would have been the homeland of her enemies. And because she’s been sleeping Elsa for so long that it would be strange to suddenly not.

Anna of course, walks in on them the next morning. And it’s not like they were doing _anything_ , well they were cuddling but that wasn’t anything new, both of them were cuddlers it seemed, but she slams the door as hard and as quickly as she physically can.

When she and Elsa come down to breakfast Maren doesn’t miss the look that Anna shoots her sister. Elsa isn’t phased at all so Maren isn’t either.

Kristoff pulls her aside in the hallway and makes her promise to treat Elsa right, and she agrees because why wouldn’t she? She mentions it to Elsa, and she doesn’t think too much of it.

And she’s not sure who started it but whenever one of them left for the day they would kiss each other on the cheek. Or in the case of this morning, she kissed Elsa on the forehead before tucking the other woman into their bed.

By the time that she’s sure of her feelings, it’s far too late to tell Elsa. They've been living together for over a year and Elsa had never indicated that she wanted to take things any further than their overly intimate friendship. She had brought up dating, in the general sense, not each other, Elsa had said that she never had any interest in any of her suitors and wasn’t interested and Maren had wanted to respect her wishes. Whenever someone asked, she never says that they’re together, despite the _looks_ that she gets. Even Yelena tells her to be careful with their newest ally and she has to tell her aunt repeatedly that there’s nothing going on. _She’s sure that Yelena doesn’t believe her._ Because she’s had relationships before and none of them were as all-consuming as this just friendship. And she knows how this must look but it’s not what it looks like. _Andyestheymovedintogetherimmediatelybutitsnotlikethat_

She knows how it must look because _yes_ Northuldra couples are usually pretty serious if they move in together. And _yes_ sometimes friends moved in together and it was totally platonic and normal but literally no one in the entirety of the forest thought that they were just friends.

Maren literally can’t pull herself away from Elsa’s lips. She’s not sure how long they’ve been in the meadow but if she could never leave, she would. The reindeer are fine, and she has more pressing matters to attend to. Like how Elsa is kissing her way down her neck. And how Elsa’s teeth are trying to tear into her neck like an actual parasite.

Before they can go too much further in the middle of an open field Elsa drags her back to their home. _Their home!_ And pushes her down on their bed and starts to ravish her.

Afterwards, lying in bed having wasted the day away with each other Elsa says something that makes Maren want to die of embarrassment all over again.

“I had a dream that we kissed once,” Elsa giggles at the thought, they told each other practically everything and she had never mentioned this before. “We were at a bonfire party and we kissed and then I woke up.”

Maren pauses, realization hitting her hard, “So did I… I’ve had that exact same dream.”

She has the vaguest of memories of her and Elsa drunkenly kissing at a bonfire party. When she wakes the next morning, fully clothed mind you, she’s sure that it was nothing but a dream. The dream had only confirmed her suspicions that she had feelings for the fifth spirt and her current roommate. But now…

“Did we kiss? Before all of this?” Maren pulls away to see if Elsa is on the same wavelength as she is.

“Apparently…” Elsa facepalms and Maren feels that in her soul. She curls into Maren’s shoulder and fights back a laugh.

“Spirits we are so dumb, we could have been doing this years ago, that bonfire was almost two years ago!”

“You could have told me,” Elsa mumbles into her shoulder, “I had to learn this from your brother, I’m never going to live this down,” Elsa isn’t crestfallen or terribly embraced by this, more annoyed than anything. Maren could agree with this, neither of them would ever live this down, maybe she could convince Ryder not to spill the beans and play it off like they actually had been dating this whole time. No, she couldn’t do that, one thing that she and Elsa had in common was blabbermouth siblings. Everyone probably knew already. “Why didn’t you tell me? I mean my sister and Kristoff both think we’re at least dating, and Ryder definitely thinks we're married.” 

“I didn’t want to make things awkward between us, I mean we did move in together before you even knew who I was,” she doesn’t miss the grimace that crosses Elsa’s face, she told her about Anna’s first whirlwind engagement. _Spirits Anna was going to have a field day with them next time they were in Arendelle._ “And I know that you didn’t know that much about Northuldra customs and I didn’t want you to think that I was taking advantage of you,” Elsa pulls her in tighter, and Maren lets out a sigh of relief, “And I never thought that you would choose me of all people…”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re the fifth spirt! You ended over three decades of conflict in a few days and freed the forest and saved Arendelle and I—I’m just me,”

“That’s why I like you, you’ve never treated me as anything other than Elsa, and I may have not have known until today but I love you Maren, I loved you back when we were just friends, now I just know that I love you romantically too.”

“I love you too.”

And curled up in each other’s arms Honeymaren has never felt so found.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	3. obvious

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maren and Elsa are slightly less useless lesbians because they are now aided by their siblings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's prompt is 'Northuldran Proposal'

Ryder had indeed told everyone within the span of a day, well not everyone, he told about 20 people and those 20 spread it everywhere before dinner. When they finally emerged from their love nest so many people couldn’t help but stare at them. A few had to fight back laughter. Yelena had hit both of them upside the head for being so stupid but says nothing more about the topic at the time.

Anna arrived not two days later after Yelena had sent her a postcard via Gale-mail. Anna had left in such a hurry that she had forgotten Olaf and Sven and _Kristoff_.

By the time that Yelena thinks to tell them this Anna is already halfway to the village. Elsa tries to convince Maren to just elope right then and there. _Everyonealreadythoughtthattheyweremarriedelopingwouldn’tbetheendoftheworld. Anna was going to kill her when she got there._ But Maren talks her out of it. She was going to kill Yelena if she got the chance.

Anna arrives on her horse, her hair full of leaves and her horse exhausted; Anna having made the poor creature ride through the night to be on time to berate her sister. “I’m sorry, why did I have to hear from Ryder, then Yelena, then four other Northuldra villagers that I don’t know yet that my sister is married?” Anna hops off of Butterscotch and the horse nearly collapses in relief. She rushes at her and Elsa has never been so afraid in all of her life. “You said that we wouldn’t shut each other out anymore and now I find out that my sister is married?”

“Anna, I swear I didn’t know!” Elsa tries to defend herself, but Anna has barely stopped to take a breath this whole time.

“You didn’t even want to tell us that you were gay, I had to walk in on you and your wife,” it’s at this point that Elsa realizes that she was more likely to die of embarrassment than Anna actually killing her, “Also, why did you never even mention that you liked girls? I could have been setting you up since the gates opened! You walked me down the aisle! How could you think I wouldn’t want to know about this?” Anna pauses to finally catch her breath, “Wait, what did you say?” Anna finally remembers that Elsa had said something.

“I didn’t know?”

“How. Could. You. Not. Know.” Anna enunciates every word as if to drive the point home. Elsa had never thought too hard about it really, she liked living with Honeymaren and never really considered that there might ulterior meaning to the gesture. That was a huge mistake apparently.

“Cultural differences?” Elsa says sheepishly.

“Oh my god, what is wrong with you? You’ve lived in the forest for what? Three years? And you never realized that you were basically married to her? You know way more about Northuldra culture than I do and how did you not know this?”

“As I’ve said before: no one told me!”

“Well, why didn’t you ask?”

“I didn’t know to ask!”

It’s then that Elsa knows that Anna probably won’t kill her. Realization flits across Anna’s face. “Oh my god, what’s wrong with you,” Anna facepalms hard, but her rage seems to finally settle. “I thought that you just weren’t ready to tell me, I thought that you just didn’t trust me,” Anna wraps her arms around herself in old insecurities.

Elsa rushes up to pull her sister in for a hug. “Anna, of course, I trust you! I never knew what was going on and if I did, I would have told you. And I could never get married without you there,” Elsa feels Anna relax in her arms and her sister pulls out of the hug to look at her.

“Ok, so when’s the proposal?” Anna asks as their eyes meet.

“That was a quick turnaround,” Elsa mumbles under her breath.

“Shut up, you’ve basically been living with this girl for three years, you should just make things official and get married.”

“Is there a point to getting married if we’re already living together and sharing a life?”

“Yes, I want to see my big sister get married and I still haven’t been able to come up here for a Northuldra wedding. So, two birds with one stone.”

“So, this is all about you?” Elsa arches her eyebrow; she had stopped wearing makeup since she had moved to the forest, but her eyebrows still cut an imposing figure.

“No, this is about my big sis _finally_ finally finally finding love and then being a complete moron about it. You’ve made fun of every one of my boyfriends and now I finally get to throw some of that back at you,” Anna laughs at the indignant face that Elsa makes.

“I have been nothing but cordial to Kristoff, and Hans was a bastard,” Elsa laughs at Anna’s own indignant face, “Also, I thought you liked Honeymaren.”

“I do, but that’s part of the job of a sister in law.”

“Not in-law, not married,” Elsa corrects.

“No yettttt,” Anna taunts as she jogs off into the village to find Honeymaren. Elsa takes off after her.

-

Maren, despite the whole upheaval of their relationship, like where they were now. She and Elsa had decided that there wasn’t a point to taking things slowly considering that they already lived together and had consummated the relationship. Which, _spirits_ , they could have been doing this the entire time, now they were just having fun playing catch up.

“I just don’t get it sis, why aren’t you rushing to propose to your wife?” Anna had accosted her earlier that day and point-blank asked when she was proposing. She didn’t have an answer, but Ryder had butted in immediately and said soon. Maren had quickly corrected him, but Anna hadn’t stopped squealing.

“She’s not my wife, we’re just dating, we _literally_ just started dating,” Maren wanted to bite this in but sooner rather than later.

“Not according to the rest of the tribe,” he taunts her.

“That’s just because everyone here is nosy.”

“Yelena’s not and even she knew.”

“Yelena’s where you get your nosiness, try again,”

“Hey, she raised you too, you’re just as nosy as I am,” Ryder switches his voice into a uber high pitched falsetto as he imitates her, “ _Oh I wonder where Elsa went. Oh I wonder when she’ll be back. Oh the fifth spirit should stay in the forest with me forever. Oh—”_

“I get it Ryder!”

“Do you though? You and Elsa together will basically be a unifying symbol between the tribe and Arendelle,” and maybe Maren hadn’t thought of that before. It made sense, but she had never thought about it before. She would marry Elsa in Arendelle in front of a crowd of strangers if that was what she wanted. It that was what it took, she’d rather not but she would.

“Way to put the pressure on,” she punches her brother hard in the shoulder.

“I’m just saying,” Ryder rubs in shoulder in discomfort. And maybe she had hit him harder than necessary, but he was being a brat.

“What are you saying?” She holds up her fist as a threat.

“What I’m trying to say is that you need to talk to your wife and figure out what your plan is, whatever it ends up being.”

“She’s not my wife!” Maren says loudly enough that a few other people turn to look at her. And she should be embarrassed but now she had to think about what her brother had said. As annoying as he was, he made a lot of good points.

-

Everything being settled with their siblings, well as settled as they were going to get, she and Maren had retired to their home. Anna when she had stayed in the forest previously would stay in their home but now, she thought it wasn’t appropriate. So, Anna was staying with Yelena to quote ‘give them some privacy’. Which she appreciates but Anna was already way too invested in their relationship.

“Do you want to get married?” Maren asks her from her side of the bedroll.

“Did my sister talk to you?”

“Yes, but answer the question,” Maren pokes her in the ribs and Elsa lets out a giggle. She wasn’t ticklish. And Elsa does want to get married, just not right now, the relationship is still too new, and she doesn’t want to act too hastily. “I want to, but I want us to get married because we want to, not because of anyone else.”

“Good, I can work with that,” Maren snuggles into her side

“Should I be worried?” Elsa shoots her a look, it’s halfway between seduction and inquisitive. Maren misses it as she’s currently trying to get under her shirt.

“I would only be worried if you had said no,” Maren says confidently.

“Awfully cocky, aren’t you?”

“I can be if that’s what you like,” Maren waggles her eyebrows from her prone position and Elsa lets her pull her sleep shirt off.

Still, she does go to Arendelle to look at rings. Not immediately of course; Anna stays for another few days to conspire with Ryder but then has to go back to her husband and a diplomatic meeting with dignitaries from Corona. Kristoff writes her a postcard congratulating her on her relationship and asking her to send a postcard the next time that Anna runs off to the woods without him. He’s the first one to not congratulate her and make fun of her in the same sentence and Elsa promises to try. Just because she _does_ like her brother-in-law.

The Northuldra used a kind of woven belt to propose but she wanted to bring her own traditions into the relationship. She made a belt out of ice to give to Maren in case she didn’t like wearing the ring. It’s intricately woven with both actual thread and her ice in a fusion of her two lives. She works on it in secret to avoid tipping Maren off. Maren catches her sneaking off a few times but doesn’t comment on it. She sees Maren sneaking off too to work on her own project and thinks that both of them are really no good at keeping secrets.

She and Maren are in no hurry to get married and there’s so much more going on. Anna and Kristoff announce a pregnancy a few months after her revelation and Elsa is sucked into the elation of becoming an aunt.

Her niece is born seven months later, and she and Maren visit often. Little Joan is absolutely adorable, and they’re absolutely wrapped around her little finger immediately, and Elsa doesn’t miss the way that Maren’s eyes light up when she gets to hold Joan. _And she wants this for them._

By the time that she starts seriously thinking about getting married she and Honeymaren have been together for over a year officially and over four if you count their first three years that they didn’t realize that they were dating. _Which she doesn’t, but almost everyone else does._

Elsa goes around Arendelle incognito, which is impossible because her face was literally on some of the money that’s still in circulation. So, soon all of Arendelle knows that she’s dating someone and planning on proposing. Oaken is terrible gossip.

Anna catches word through the grapevine and insists on accompanying her in her search. She’s left Joan with her nurse so it’s just the two of them for the first two jewelers. Soon, however, Olaf and Kristoff join them, but Sven has to wait outside.

“What about a snowflake-shaped gem?”

“I don’t think those exist, Anna,” Kristoff says reasonably and Elsa’s pretty sure that he’s right.

“Ok, but it has to be something special,” Anna assures, and Elsa does agree with this.

“Why did both of you invite yourself along for this?”

“Joan is a little angel when you’re around but she’s a little hellion most days, we need a break,” Kristoff and Olaf nod in agreement and Elsa can’t bring herself to make them leave.

“If I remember correctly you were a little hellion too, maybe this is karma,” Elsa examines the ring case, it was the third store they had hit, and she still hadn’t found what she was looking for.

“That was like 25 years ago, you can’t bring that up!” Elsa snickers at Anna’s red face.

“What are you looking for exactly?” The jeweler speaks up, having stayed silent the entire familiar argument.

“An engagement ring for my sister,” Anna doesn’t give Elsa time to answer, “She wants to propose to her girlfriend,” Anna can’t help the excitement in her voice.

“Of course, your majesty, what kind of ring are you looking for?”

“Just Elsa is fine, something simple, the ring should fit the woman,” Maren was very active and too big of a stone or too weak of a band wouldn’t survive a week in the forest.

“Are you interested in a stone or just a band?”

“More likely just a band, maybe one with an engraving?” Elsa truly was out of her element, she had never had to consider jewelry before, she had always made her own out of ice, and now she had to make a life-altering decision with jewelry.

“Have you considered ordering a custom piece?”

“You can do that?”

“Yes,” the jeweler says slowly, likely trying to discern whether Elsa is messing with her. She’s not, she’s just clueless.

“Yeah, my ring is custom,” Anna holds up her hand to show off the offending object.

“Okay, so can I draw what I want on the ring and you’ll make it?”

“Yes, that’s how it works, you tell me what kind of metal you want what engravings you want and all of that,” the jeweler explains everything slowly, apparently catching on that Elsa is out of depth. “Do you know what size your girlfriend’s finger is?”

“No, how do you measure that?” She hears Anna facepalm in the background.

“You just need to measure the distance around her ring finger so that the ring will fit snugly but not too tight or too loose.”

“Kristoff, how did you do this?” Elsa turns to him because surely, he had to know how to do this discreetly. He had literally asked for her permission to marry Anna months before they actually got engaged and Anna had no idea the whole time.

“I measured one of her gloves to get an estimate,” and that would be helpful if only Maren actually wore gloves.

“She wears mittens,” Elsa sighs in frustration, hand on her forehead, “I think I need to come back,” Elsa says as she exits the store and starts to head back to the forest. Barely bothering to say goodbye to everyone.

She tries a couple of different things, well thinks about trying a couple of different things, and eventually just ends up measuring Maren’s fingers in her sleep. Which, really, should have been her first plan because her other plans would not have worked. At all. Having custom gloves made for Maren made sense in her head but was ridiculous in real life. So was taking her to a different jewelry store and having her try on different pieces.

When Elsa returns to the store a month later her plan for the ring is ready. It’s a simple silver band with the symbols for the four elements engraved on the outside with a snowflake connecting the four diamonds. It’s ready a few weeks later and now all Elsa has to do is figure out how she wants to propose. _Shit._

-

Maren had been working on her own plans for proposing. She had started weaving the belt soon after their first real discussion of marriage. It’s done a few months later. She had chosen a mix of colors and woven the pattern in the shape of a snowflake. Then Anna and Kristoff announce their pregnancy and then Joan is born, and she and Elsa become aunts for the first time and honestly, she lost focus for a bit.

And she and Elsa have their first fight when Elsa disappears for several weeks on a fifth spirit assignment. _And yes, she said that she was going away, but she never said that she would be gone for almost a month!_ And Maren had been so worried because Elsa hadn’t said anything the whole time that she was gone. She didn’t send anything through Gale-mail. And then she comes back almost a month later with a broken arm and a few bruised ribs and acts like nothing had happened! It’s not relationship-ending but it’s the first night they spend on separate bedrolls, no matter how much she just wants to hold her girlfriend. They make up obviously, Elsa needed to be more communicative and Maren needed to set boundaries. And it’s sometime after that that Honeymaren realizes that she needed more.

She wanted to be with Elsa forever, and she wanted Elsa to know that she could depend on her for anything and everything. She wanted them to be and have a family.

Ryder is smug and excited when she finally comes to him to start planning a proposal. He had been pestering her non-stop for the past year and had planned out most of the proposal already. And Maren doesn’t exactly disagree with his plans.

“How long have you been planning this?”

“Since you two started living together, I’ve been thinking about this for a long time and I have planned every detail.”

And Maren is touched if a bit weirded out. Everyone was far too invested in their relationship but it felt good to be so cherished.

Maren sneaks off to Arendelle when Elsa’s away at Ahtohallen to talk to Anna.

“Kristoff told me that it’s customary to ask permission before pro—” Maren begins but is quickly cut off by Anna.

“Oh my god! You’re proposing!” Anna squeals and grabs her hands, “Of course you have my permission! When are you doing it? How are you doing it? No! Don’t tell me! I want to be surprised! You have to tell me when you’re doing it so I can be there!” With that settled, Maren helped Ryder wrangle the reindeer, arrange the flowers, and collect the butterflies.

Ryder is the one who offers to grab Elsa the morning of the proposal. Maren had snuck out much earlier that morning and Anna, Kristoff, and Olaf had snuck into the village long before dawn.

“Ryder where are you taking me?” Honeymaren hears Elsa yawn out through the trees, Elsa could rise early on her own accord but reflexively recoiled at the idea of being woken up early.

As Elsa and Ryder enter the clearing, she signals Anna and Kristoff to throw the butterflies and flowers. She watches Elsa’s tired eyes widen in realization. The tears that form are ones of joy.

“Elsa, my gorgeous, amazing, wonderful soulmate, the light of my life, will you marry me?” And she felt ridiculous standing on the heart-shaped rock until this moment. Right now, everything feels perfect.

“Of course,” Elsa forms a ramp of ice that she can walk up to meet Maren on the heart-shaped rock. Then she gets down on one knee and pulls out a ring and a matching belt. “Will you marry me?” They’re both crying now.

“What kind of question is that?” Maren cups Elsa’s face, pulling the other woman up to her feet, “Yes!” She pulls her fiancé in for a kiss to seal the deal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter to go!


	4. overjoyed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bonus Prompt: Bless this Happiness We've Found
> 
> Maren regales their son with how she and Elsa met and fell in love while waiting for her to return from a trip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I totally forgot about this for a while but here's the conclusion. I didn't know how I wanted to end this and eventually just decided on a really fluffy ending. The other option was smut. Which I have never written before.

“Mama, how did you and mommy meet?” Niko, their boy, _their son_ , asks one night, it was past his bedtime but the both of them were waiting up for Elsa; she had promised to be back by that night. She had wanted to be a mother for years but had since accepted that it wasn’t likely to happen. She had grown to love being an aunt and that was enough. She and Elsa had already given up on the idea of having children by then when he came into their lives. He had come to them through a Northuldra couple with too many children of their own.

The couple had come to them early on in the pregnancy, they had five young children already and had seen the way that the two women looked at children. _And Maren knows how she looks at children, it was outright longing. She had never registered the same emotion in her wife._ And Maren hadn’t known them well, and as much as she wanted to say yes right away, but she needed to talk to her wife.

And Elsa had been hesitant at first. They were both older now, definitely more experienced than they were when they first started living together and started raising reindeer together, but that didn’t mean that it would translate. _And no matter how much she wanted this she didn’t want to pressure Elsa._ Still, they had eventually said yes, they wanted this, they wanted children together—they were already a family, but they were ready and willing to grow their family. _Elsa admits later when she’s holding their son for the first time that she wanted this for them. She just didn’t want to pressure her. And maybe becoming parents would make them a little less oblivious._

(They had been married for years at this point. They visited Arendelle weekly for game nights and to watch their nieces and nephews for her sister and brother-in-law’s date night. They had married a year or so after their unintentional joint proposal. The ceremony had been small despite Anna’s protests, it was lovely all the same)

It still seemed surreal that they had a child.

“Do you really want to hear that story? You must have heard it a hundred times already,” Maren settles next to her son on his cot.

“Of course, mama!” Niko was much younger than his cousins, Joan was almost fifteen, the twins ten apiece, Klaus was the closest in age and he was still two and a half years older than him.

“Well, where do you want me to start today?” She ruffles her son’s hair, it was slightly darker than her own, his eyes a little darker and his skin a little light, but he was theirs, there was no doubting it.

“The beginning duh!” Niko admonishes her like he didn’t ask Elsa to start when they met the day before.

“Well a long time ago the spirits and the Northuldra lived in harmony with the spirits, and all of that changed when dignitaries from Arendelle came to visit for the first time,” Maren would never tire of telling this story because it had brought her wife to her, it had brought her son to her. 

“Where were Joan, Anders, Alicia, and Klaus?” Niko loved his cousins; they had made it a point to make sure that he had a good relationship with them. It was unlikely that they would be able to give him a sibling, so they wanted him to be close to the other children in the family. He saw Ryder’s daughters often but his Arendellian cousins didn’t live in the same village.

“They weren’t born yet; well Joan was for part of this but the other weren’t.”

“How old _are_ you mama?” Niko asks as if she were decrepit, she was in her early forties, Yelena, who was basically his only grandmother figure, was nearly eighty. He yawns loudly and Maren decides on an abbreviated version of the story.

“Hey, I wasn’t even alive for parts of this!” She shoves her son lightly, “Well after the King of Arendelle attacked the chief of our people a mist fell over the forest for nearly forty years. And I was born, and I grew up in the forest back before we had a real sky, and that is how things were until one day we got visitors,” Maren would never forget meeting Elsa for the first time. She didn’t know what Elsa would mean to her then, but she could never forget meeting a literal goddess in the flesh.

“Mommy?” Niko perks up at this part, it was his favorite, if he was really tired, he would make them start there and end when he was born. Though he often fell asleep sometime during their courting.

“Yes, your aunt and your mommy and your uncle came through the mist, and saved all of us, they brought the sky back,” and Maren would never forget seeing the sky for the first time.

“What are you two doing in here?” Maren hadn’t heard the flap of the tent open; they had moved out of their couples dwelling years ago, their hut was now big enough for the three of them and occasionally their nieces and nephews during school holidays. Elsa had been gone for a few days resolving an Earth Giant dispute in the far west reaches of the forest. Niko always wanted to hear their story more when Elsa was gone for long periods of time. She can’t fault him, because she misses her wife too. She can never help the way her shoulders sag in relief whenever Elsa walks in the door.

“Niko wanted a bedtime story,” Honeymaren can’t help the undoubtedly dopey smile that won’t leave her face.

“Let me guess, he wanted to hear our whole sordid tale?” Elsa joins them on their son’s cot and gives her and Niko pecks on the cheek. “I thought it was a little late for the light to still be on.”

“We didn’t want to miss you,” Maren sags into her wife’s side, “And of course, what else would our darling boy want?”

“Mama was telling me how you met,” Niko settles into his furs, fighting to keep his eyes open.

“Oh, she was, wasn’t she?” Her wife kids, Elsa is tired, bone-tired, she can see the way she’s also fighting to keep her eyes open, but she never wanted to be too busy or too tired for her family, “Well Mama and I met right before the mist fell, and then I decided to stay in the forest instead of returning to rule Arendelle, and rather than build my own hut your Mama graciously let me live with her.”

“And is that when you fell in love?” And both of them know that he knows the story by heart, but they indulge him.

“No, not right away,” Elsa laughs, she can laugh at her past self now, enough time had passed and every member of her family had done it enough by now so it didn’t sting, “Mama and me lived together for years, and both of us liked each other but neither realized that the other had the same feelings,” Elsa smirks intertwines their fingers together.

“Hey, I knew that I liked you I just thought that you didn’t want anything more out of our relationship,” Maren defends herself half-heartedly, this was their son, obviously things had worked out. “Your Mommy didn’t even know our traditions and didn’t know that your uncle Ryder and almost everyone in the tribe thought that we were dating, or married,” Maren playfully shoves Elsa, never letting their fingers come loose. 

“Why didn’t you realize this?” Niko reminds her too much of Ryder and Anna then, and Maren briefly reconsiders all the times that she’s let them babysit.

“Because mama and mommy were very dumb but don’t tell your aunt Anna that I said that or I’ll make you clean up after the reindeer,” Elsa says it like she’s joking but both mother and son know that she is deadly serious.

“Don’t tell Ryder either, or Yelena, this is a family confession that never leaves this house,” she thinks to tack on, their whole extended family already never let them live that down, admitting it would only dredge all of it back up again.

“Can I tell Joan, Anders, Alicia, or Klaus?” Niko yawns, obviously excited but slowly but surely letting sleep take him.

“No,” they say at the same time.

“I cannot stress this enough, please do not tell _anyone_ what I just said,” Elsa tucks him in with a kiss.

“Okay Mommy, Mama, so, how does it end?”

“And then we finally got our acts together and declared our love,” Maren leans in to kiss her son’s forehead as well. He giggles and she tucks him in even tighter.

“And then we started dating for real and eventually got engaged, then we got married, and then all your cousins were born and then you came into our lives,” Elsa sags into her side, she’s fading fast and Maren’s almost sure that she’ll have to put her wife to bed too.

“And then they lived happily ever after,” she wraps the story up in a nice bow, and maybe life wasn’t always that neat, but they would always fight to have that kind of life with one another.

“Really?” Niko shuts his eyes finally.

“Well I like to think so,” Maren can’t help but smirk when Elsa blushes.

And she doesn’t mind the gagging noises that come from their son as she pulls her wife in for a kiss. Even if his eyes are shut and he can’t even see them kissing.

Elsa’s nearly passed out by then and she picks her wife up bridal style to bring her over to their bed.

“How was the trip?” She starts to change into her own sleepwear.

“Too long,” Elsa mumbles out, greedily pulling the covers over her head, not bothering to change.

“Well we’re both glad to have you back,” she joins her wife in bed, and Elsa half-consciously wraps herself around her like an octopus.

“I love you,” Elsa murmurs into her neck.

“Love you too,” Elsa’s fast asleep by then, but Maren knows that Elsa feels the warmth from it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading and thanks to everyone who participated in Elsamaren Week Summer 2020! 
> 
> The Kristanna children are Joan (15), the twins Alicia and Anders (11), and Klaus (7). Niko is about 5 in this chapter. Ryder's daughters who I really didn't think about too hard are 12 and 10. 
> 
> Also, please check out my other Elsamaren fic if you're into angst and AU's

**Author's Note:**

> I may continue this but I think it stands okay as a one-shot too.


End file.
